Law No. 151/2019 on informal settlements in Romania was promulgated

The law by which the informal settlements will be identified and can be legalized in Romania was promulgated on July 24, 2019 and became the Law no. 151/2019 for the completion of Law no. 350/2001 on spatial planning and urban planning.

The project “No man’s land” was a real leap in the awareness and inclusive addressing of the phenomenon of informal living in Romania. The subtitle „Recognition, responsibility and shared solutions” perfectly summarizes the effort of the project team (MKBT: Make Better, PACT Foundation, Valea Corbului Initiative Group, DEP Bumbești Jiu and GAL Resita).

The objective of the project was to promote a legal framework through which, together with the communities and local public authorities, we act for the safety of the dwelling and the health of the inhabitants in the informal settlements. To do this, I followed all the steps necessary for an integrated approach, documented, analyzed, consulted communities and public authorities, communicated publicly and organized conferences and workshops to raise awareness of the relevant actors about the „informal” reality in which at least 200,000 live. Romanian citizens. We made movies (thanks to the Vira Association), GIS maps (Mihai Tentis), photographs (George Popescu) and exhibitions (including inside the Romanian Parliament), all to bring the reality closer to public institutions and actors.

We are pleased to announce the publication of the law in the Official Gazette no.623 / July 26, 2019, but our work is not far from complete. The PACT Foundation and the MKBT will remain actors involved in solving the problem of informal housing in Romania. And the work in the field, for the application of the law, only now begins …

We thank the deputies Petre Florin Manole and Adrian Dohotaru who, on behalf of the 27 deputy signatories initiating the draft law, submitted the draft law in October 2018 and followed it through its parliamentary committees and chambers. Thanks to them, but also to Violet Alexandru and Borbély László, we were able to contact all the parliamentary groups, with whom we discussed the proposed normative solutions and the necessary measures to be instituted by law. The law was approved unanimously by the members of Parliament, after it was also debated within an inter-ministerial working group organized by the Ministry of Regional Development and Public Administration – Romania, to which representatives of professional associations and non-governmental organizations from the area!

Thank you to everyone involved![:]